


Just a Fool

by TheAlternativeRuler



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Hearing Voices, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sadstuck, Self Loathing, Self-Harm, body negativity, just as a warning, self hatred, this is probably the darkest thing I've ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 08:20:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6746455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAlternativeRuler/pseuds/TheAlternativeRuler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dad raised you to believe that honesty is the best policy, so it's okay for you to write these things all over the walls, it's okay to listen to the cackling voices, it's okay to hate yourself like this.</p><p>After all, you're just being honest with yourself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Fool

**Author's Note:**

> This is extremely self-indulgent, and I honestly have no idea when this is supposed to take place. It's also really OOC, so yeah.

Your name is John Egbert and you're a fool.

You're also an idiot, an asshole, a brat, a selfish coward, a terrible leader, a lame kid, and a stupid friend, among other things.

The harlequins are whispering these things to you, over and over again in your head like a symphony of ridicule that you can't escape. Not that you'd want to. You need to hear it, you need to know your flaws. It's not fair to your friends if you just ignore what's so obviously wrong about yourself.

Tears are sliding down your cheeks like rivers of your hurting, completely disgusting and pitiful. God, you're so pathetic, you don't even have a right to be upset about this, you don't have a right to feel sorry for yourself. 

You shake your head, gross tangled hair flopping over your forehead and eyes as you continue writing. The harlequins say you have to write these things down, somewhere you'll always see it, somewhere that surrounds you nearly constantly. The words have to be big and colorful and messy so you always know they're there, so you always know what they mean.

You finish writing "DIRTY, DISGUSTING, VILE PIECE OF SHIT" in a bright purple marker and reach down to grab another color. You come up with a bloody red one, and immediately the whispers change to loud, screeching cackles saying, "YOU DESERVE TO DIE" and nothing else. These words go in large, scratchy font over your headboard and the tears flow faster and become sobs when the clowns keep you going in red.

"YOU'RE AN AWFUL PERSON, YOU SHOULD DIE, YOU KILLED YOUR FRIENDS, YOU DON'T DESERVE ANY OF THEM, YOU'RE DESPICABLE, STUPID, USELESS, WORTHLESS, BLEED YOU FUCKER, BLEED OUT AND DIE, YOU DESERVE PAIN AND SUFFERING, YOU AREN'T WORTH THE LIFE YOU'RE LIVING, DIEDIEDIEDIEDIE."

The "DIE"s blur together at the end, layering over each other until your tear-filled eyes can't make out the word anymore. Goddamn stupid idiot, can't even write correctly.

The harlequins laugh when you collapse on the bed, curling up and digging your nails into your skin as you hug your limbs close. You clench so hard that you feel blood bubble beneath your fingers and the voices go nuts, demanding more of the red fluid from you. 

You sit up and watch detachedly as you rake your fingernails across your inner arms, white, then pink, and finally red appearing there. You start to claw at your thighs and stomach next, and the whispers go, "Fat, completely disgusting, this is your fault, you're so ugly, cut it off, get rid of it." You dig your nails into your stomach and pull, crying out as you feel shreds of skin tear from your body, but it's still not enough.

The clowns compel you to stand and stumble into your bathroom, slamming the door shut behind you. Your Dad isn't home, so who cares if you make a lot of noise.

You stand there, shaking like a leaf and staring at your reflection in the mirror. You grimace at the tear tracks and the snot and the wreck that is your face, all scrunched up in pain and abhorrence. "Repulsive, aren't you?" they whisper again. "So sickly pale, you're young you should be outside more you lazy bastard. You're so big, look at that skin just flopping everywhere, it's absolutely horrifying. Give yourself some color and get rid of that fat, shit for brains."

Another cry escapes your lips as you reach into your bathroom drawer to grab your razor. You move it until it's positioned over your left wrist, grip so tight your knuckles are as white as bone. The harlequins scream, "DO IT!" and so you do. Blood immediately gushes from the cuts and you're wracked with these terrible, terrible sobs as you make another set higher up that same arm. 

From there you drag the blade lightly along your skin until it reaches the tops of your thighs. You wriggle out of your jeans and throw them into the corner of the room. Stretch marks like flashes of bruised lightning come into view and the voices come back, "Look at how grotesque your skin is. All of that fat makes itself uglier by just being there. It's your fault, you're a lazy, worthless, good-for-nothing scumbag. Gods don't look like this, you don't even deserve that title. Take them away, you bastard, get rid of them, no one should have to see that, you'll make people SICK."

A quick slash marks horizontal lines across the jagged raised scars, blood trickling down your thighs like they're Karkat's tears. You do the same to your other thigh, digging your teeth (stupid, dumb buck teeth) into your lips so hard that blood fills your mouth. The red liquid is all over you, but it feels right, it feels necessary. 

You're just about to move to your stomach when you hear something and your entire universe falls apart.

"Hey, Egbert? You home?"

It's Dave.

Shit.

The harlequins start a complete and utter riot in your head, making you drop the razor and press on your ears to try and make it go away. "YOU'RE SUCH A DUMBASS, NOW YOUR BEST FRIEND IS GOING TO COME IN HERE AND SEE YOU LIKE A COMPLETE MESS AND HE'S GOING TO HATE YOU. HE'S GOING TO PUKE BECAUSE YOU'RE SO HORRIFICALLY DISGUSTING. HE'S NEVER GOING TO WANT TO TALK TO YOU AGAIN THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT YOU IDIOT!"

You crouch in the corner, back against the bathtub, and whimper pitifully. You wait for Dave to come, hope against all hope that he'll just give up and go home.

"Egderp? Are you here or what? This better not be another shitty prank." You hear light footsteps come up the stairs and you whine low in your throat.

"John? C'mon dude, I—" he cuts off there. Shitshitshit he must've seen your room.

Everything is dead silent and then a small, mumbled voice breaks it, "Oh my god."

You can't help it, you choke out a sob. The voices berate you for it, but you deserve that.

"John? John, oh god, John where are you?" Dave sounds frantic, worried, maybe even scared, and that makes you whimper even more.

You hear his footsteps as he leaves your room and heads toward your bathroom, his ears are so good, of course he heard you. You start to cry even harder (stupid, stupid, dumb, foolish boy) when he stops in front of the closed door. 

"John? Are you in there?" he asks, his voice sounding smaller than you've ever heard it before in your life.

He doesn't wait for an answer, turning the doorknob casually like he's not wreaking havoc on your world. You're frozen in fear, a tearful, bleeding mess on the ground as he walks in and stares at you. This look of absolute terror crosses his face and oh god you can see it in his eyes, he must've taken his shades off to better read the words on your walls. You can see them, his eyes that are as red as your blood, his eyes that are so damn expressive you can see every emotion that he feels in them. Fear, confusion, hurt, sadness, they all flit through his mind until he lands on determination.

"I'm calling an ambulance," he says, expression hardening.

Your eyes get impossibly wider with a renewed sense of panic and the harlequins are tearing your mind apart like their words are bullets. "Nonononononononono Dave please, you can't, please don't, oh god nonono please don't do that." You scramble all over the floor, grabbing his legs with your bloody hands, staining his jeans (you inconsiderate asshole). You cry harder than before and dissolve into a begging, pleading mess, holding onto Dave for dear life.

He crouches down to your level and his expression is so soft, his eyes so concerned and sad that you can't even bear to look at him. "Okay," he says lowly, "I won't call an ambulance. But I'm going to patch you up myself, right this instant."

Dave helps you up, sitting you on your closed toilet and handing you towels, telling you to try and hold them to your deeper cuts while he grabs some stuff. He flash steps away for all of five seconds, but it feels like an eternity. When he comes back, he takes the towels from you and grabs your left elbow oh so gently, more gently than you deserve, having you stretch out your arm so he can use alcohol wipes to clean away the blood. You're still crying, cringing and whimpering because it hurts, but you don't pull away, you don't, even if the roaring in your head says you aren't worth the kindness he's giving you.

Dave makes soothing noises as he cleans and bandages your cuts, whispering things you don't understand and humming a sweet melody to calm you down (you're so dumb, you just cry more because his voice is gorgeous and you shouldn't even be allowed to listen). He carefully rubs a disinfecting gel over the scratches you made before, the ones that didn't cut down deep enough. Once you're all bandaged and in no danger of bleeding to death, he cleans up your bathroom, wiping away all traces of blood and flash stepping downstairs to start a load of laundry. He even throws his jeans in there and grabs a pair of sweatpants from your room, he's here so often that you just cleared a space in your drawers for him in case he sleeps over.

When all of that is done, he comes back to you and picks you up, carrying you bridal style back to your room, mindful of your cuts. It's too kind, it's too much, you can't take it, not when you know you don't deserve it, not when you know you should only get hate and pain.

He gently lays you down on your bed and throws all your markers into your closet, grimacing all the while at the words etched on your walls. Then he joins you, all long limbs and lean muscles pressed up against your body and you cry into his shoulder as he holds you, murmuring things in your hair.

The harlequins won't shut up about it, they've been screaming nonstop since you realized he was here. They're screeching, "YOU ASSHOLE, YOU'RE BLUBBERING ALL OVER HIM, THAT'S DISGUSTING, YOU DON'T DESERVE THIS, YOU DON'T HAVE A RIGHT TO ENJOY HIS KINDNESS, HE SHOULD HATE YOU, CAN'T HE SEE HOW REPULSIVE YOU ARE? GET OFF OF HIM YOU SICK, SELFISH BASTARD!"

IknowIknowIknowjustshutupIknow.

"John?" Dave whispers and you freeze up.

"...Y-yeah?" you get out, gnawing on your lip.

"What..." he pauses, searching for the words that he's normally so good with. "What's going on? Why did I find you...like that?"

"Oh..." you mumble, shifting in discomfort, really not ready to have this conversation.

"You know you can tell me anything, right? I'm here for you, dude, no matter what," he says, tilting your chin up so he can look you in the eyes as he says it.

"I...i-it's nothing, really, it isn't. I'm just...being stupid, again." You're not even lying, you are just stupid, that's sort of the whole point.

"Cut the crap right now Egbert, if you're...hurting yourself, if you're thinking all of this," he gestures at the walls around you,"about yourself, then something is definitely wrong. And I want to help you. I'm your friend, your best friend, and I'm really worried about you. Actually no, that's not strong enough, I'm fucking terrified." You blink at him in shock. He nods and doesn't let go of your face, moving to hold it with both hands and rub his thumbs along your tear tracks. "John when I walked into this room my heart almost stopped. I read every nasty thing you'd written and it's so much worse from what Rose told me you wrote when we were kids, I completely flipped my shit. I thought you were dead or something and I'd gotten here too late to save you. And then when I found you? I didn't know whether to be relieved or worried or scared or upset or angry or what."

You look away then, you know if you make eye contact with him any longer, you'll break. You'll tell him everything and he'll hate you even more than he must already hate you now.

Dave's silent, for a moment, then his breath hitches a bit on the next intake. "It hurts, John, knowing that you don't trust me enough to tell me, knowing that you don't believe me when I say that I'll always be your friend, through anything, thick and thin and everything in between."

If nothing he's said affected you before, this certainly does the trick. You start to shake against your friend's strong frame, more liquid salt pouring down your cheeks as your guilt crushes your heart. You...hurt him? How could you hurt him after everything he just did for you? 

What...what kind of a monster are you?

Dave shushes you again, threading his fingers through your hair. God, he's still comforting you, how is he real? How can he do all of this after admitting that you hurt him?

"Dave...Dave I'm s-so sorry. I-I never meant to hurt you, god, I..." you break off into sobs. "I tr-trust you, I p-promise I do..."

"Shh."

You die off into a whisper, "'M sorry, I...I don't have any right to be your friend."

"Don't say that," Dave snaps. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "Just...talk to me."

"It's...it's the harlequins. Again. B-but it's not their fault or anything! They're just telling me stuff I already know about myself. It's sorta like my subconscious thoughts are being...screamed at me...almost 24/7...yeah..." you trail off awkwardly, knowing that Dave is giving you an 'I-don't-appreciate-that-grade-A-bullshit-Egbert' look.

"And what exactly do you know about yourself?" he asks, glaring slightly at you.

"Um, well, you read it all already, didn't you?" You gesture at the walls as he had before. "You know...I'm stupid, I'm dumb, I'm fat, I'm an asshole, things like that. It's all the truth, so it...doesn't bother me, all that much."

"Really? Then why were you doing...what you were doing, when I got here?" He sounds incredibly disbelieving.

You look away and murmur out your answer, "Because...they told me to."

"Dammit, John," Dave almost yells, causing you to flinch away from him (not fully, no, you trust him too much to be scared of him). "I'm gonna sound like the god tier level of dads here, but I'm really fucking disappointed in you."

That certainly surprises you.

"Wh-why?" you stammer, looking up at him with wide eyes.

"Because you should've told someone about this. Your dad, me, Rose, Jade, hell, even Karkat, or someone. You shouldn't keep shit like this to yourself, you..." He takes your wrists in hand, carefully, and finishes quietly, "you can seriously get hurt."

You blink the tears from your eyes, touched by his concern, by how much he cares, by his words and his actions and just the fact that he's here right now, with you.

"John." He makes you look him in the eyes again, his as shiny with something as yours are. "I don't ever want to hear that you're thinking bullshit like that about yourself ever again. But...if you do, if those motherfucking clowns start making a mess of your head again, please come to me. I want to help you, I want you to be okay, I want you to know that you're not alone in this."

"And I swear to god if you ever doubt yourself again, I'll be there to tell you that you're amazing." He pulls your wrist up to his lips and kisses it.

You think your heart just stopped, or maybe it's beating too fast to feel.

"You're wonderful. You're all crazy kinds of creative. You're so strong. Selfless. Courageous. Friendly. Kind. Enthusiastic and dorky and endearing and beautiful." He punctuates each word with a kiss, going up and down your forearms, across your wrists, scooting down to press his lips against your stomach, your thighs, everything you hate about yourself and everything you want to disappear. He kisses it all, like it's precious, like it's something worth loving, like maybe you actually deserve it.

Dave climbs back up your body, finishing his little monologue with a whispered tone. "You're so important, you're worth it, John, you deserve to be happy and have all your friends and be loved and safe and protected." These kisses go around your face, brushed across your cheeks and trailed along your forehead.

Then he just about kills you with, "You're so fucking perfect." 

Before you even have time to respond after your crying burst of happy, disbelieving laughter, he kisses you. Slow and steady and full of so many good feelings that you can't pull away, even if he should have so much more than you. 

The voices try to throw slurs at you, saying you corrupted your best friend, giving insult after insult after insult, but they're only a small whisper now, drowned out by your love for this boy and his words still reverberating in your ears.

"God, Dave, I love you." You smile at him, knowing you're blushing up a storm but not caring in the slightest. "What did I ever do to deserve you?"

Dave grins and shakes his head. "Nah, man, what did I do to get you?"


End file.
